News in Brief: Possible Reversal in Wisconsin Judge Race After Alleged Spreadsheet Mistake, and More

In a move that has many crying foul, the Waukesha county clerk Kathy Nickolaus (R) announced that, due to a database error, she had found thousands of uncounted votes which would likely give a big push to Justice David Prosser (R) in a close race that he was losing to liberal challenger JoAnna Kloppenburg, reported Talking Points Memo. Democratic and Republican members of the county canvassing board stood behind Nickolaus as she announced the shift at a press conference. Nickolaus had come under fire previously for keeping election results on her personal computer, reported BradBlog,and is raising serious questions about the transparency surrounding the announced database error.

US Uncut Activists in Washington Occupy State Capitol

Activists with the US Uncut movement, which targets corporations that don't pay taxes, occupied the Washington Capitol yesterday. The number of people is unconfirmed, but a series of reports on Twitter as well as a Flickr photo stream show the event. According to a contributor to Washington Liberals, a community-edited progressive web site, hundreds of people were occupying the state Capitol in Olympia by Wednesday night, demanding a fair state budget. The Olympia Coalition for Fair Budget put forward a blueprint of their view of a fair budget to lawmakers on March 17, 2011.

NATO Won't Apologize for Attacking Rebels

NATO has said that it will not apologize for an attack on rebel tanks in Libya, reported the BBC, with commanders saying they didn't know rebel forces had been using tanks until the incident on Thursday. The incident highlighted the tension between NATO's mission in Libya, which is to "protect civilians," and the desire of the Europeans and the US to explicitly support the rebels. At a news conference after the strike, Rear. Adm. Russ Harding said NATO's job was "not to gain the trust of either side."

Arizona House OKs Guns on Campus

Only three-months after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's at a public event in Tucson, the Arizona House has passed a bill that will allow firearms to be carried on university campuses. The legislation will allow both open and concealed weapons, and proponents of the bill argue that it will save lives in a campus shooting. Opponents worry that it places police at a dangerous disadvantage, reported Reuters. If passed, Arizona will join Utah as the second state which allows guns on campus. Nine states have introduced similar legislation this year.

Grandmother Cuts Armenia Off From Internet

An elderly Georgian woman, scavenging for scrap copper to sell, accidentally damaged the fiber-optic cable which provides Internet access for neighboring Armenia. Georgia provides 90 percent of Armenia's Internet service, and the woman's mistake left 3.2 million people disconnected for up to five hours, with large parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan also affected. If charged and convicted of damaging property, the elderly woman faces up to three years in prison, reported The Guardian UK.

Yana Kunichoff is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary producer based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Fusion.net, Al Jazeera, Pacific Standard and Chicago Magazine.

News in Brief: Possible Reversal in Wisconsin Judge Race After Alleged Spreadsheet Mistake, and More

In a move that has many crying foul, the Waukesha county clerk Kathy Nickolaus (R) announced that, due to a database error, she had found thousands of uncounted votes which would likely give a big push to Justice David Prosser (R) in a close race that he was losing to liberal challenger JoAnna Kloppenburg, reported Talking Points Memo. Democratic and Republican members of the county canvassing board stood behind Nickolaus as she announced the shift at a press conference. Nickolaus had come under fire previously for keeping election results on her personal computer, reported BradBlog,and is raising serious questions about the transparency surrounding the announced database error.

US Uncut Activists in Washington Occupy State Capitol

Activists with the US Uncut movement, which targets corporations that don't pay taxes, occupied the Washington Capitol yesterday. The number of people is unconfirmed, but a series of reports on Twitter as well as a Flickr photo stream show the event. According to a contributor to Washington Liberals, a community-edited progressive web site, hundreds of people were occupying the state Capitol in Olympia by Wednesday night, demanding a fair state budget. The Olympia Coalition for Fair Budget put forward a blueprint of their view of a fair budget to lawmakers on March 17, 2011.

NATO Won't Apologize for Attacking Rebels

NATO has said that it will not apologize for an attack on rebel tanks in Libya, reported the BBC, with commanders saying they didn't know rebel forces had been using tanks until the incident on Thursday. The incident highlighted the tension between NATO's mission in Libya, which is to "protect civilians," and the desire of the Europeans and the US to explicitly support the rebels. At a news conference after the strike, Rear. Adm. Russ Harding said NATO's job was "not to gain the trust of either side."

Arizona House OKs Guns on Campus

Only three-months after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's at a public event in Tucson, the Arizona House has passed a bill that will allow firearms to be carried on university campuses. The legislation will allow both open and concealed weapons, and proponents of the bill argue that it will save lives in a campus shooting. Opponents worry that it places police at a dangerous disadvantage, reported Reuters. If passed, Arizona will join Utah as the second state which allows guns on campus. Nine states have introduced similar legislation this year.

Grandmother Cuts Armenia Off From Internet

An elderly Georgian woman, scavenging for scrap copper to sell, accidentally damaged the fiber-optic cable which provides Internet access for neighboring Armenia. Georgia provides 90 percent of Armenia's Internet service, and the woman's mistake left 3.2 million people disconnected for up to five hours, with large parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan also affected. If charged and convicted of damaging property, the elderly woman faces up to three years in prison, reported The Guardian UK.

Yana Kunichoff is an award-winning investigative journalist and documentary producer based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Fusion.net, Al Jazeera, Pacific Standard and Chicago Magazine.